"It certainly is a lovely river," said the woman.

"Lady," said Remo Pelham, "you've got taste up your ass."

As he began to walk away, she shrieked, "What about my luggage? You can't leave me here with this luggage. I came with you. You're the man! You've got to do something about this luggage."

And Remo took care of the luggage, a large heavy suitcase and a small modelling box, by flipping them over the dark stone wall to the West Side Highway forty yards below where they burst on the roof of a passing Cadillac.

CHAPTER FOUR

The bitter-faced man sat just beyond the spotlight's reach, his legs crossed, his left elbow on the small round table, his right hand resting in the crook of the opposite elbow. He wore a gray suit, white shirt and gray tie. His rimless glasses occasionally reflected the light as did his precision combed hairline with its micrometer-straight part.

He did not move from this position for fifteen minutes, not when the voluptuous dancer strained in sweaty ecstasy against the confines of her beads, or when joyful enthusiasm threw dollar bills onto the floor or stuffed them in her jewelled breast cups. Smoke curled to the ceiling. Sweets-loaded trays hovered over the heads of scurrying waiters. The plinking excitement of the bouzoukis caught the audience in its rhythms and joys and shrieks of life. The man did not move.

One man moved, almost floating through the dark crowd to the table of the bitter-faced man.

"You're as obvious as a bowl of garbage, in Tiffany's," said the man known as Remo Pelham.

"Good to see you. I want to congratulate you on your selection as director of security for Brewster Forum."

"You're sitting here like a stone. Don't you think someone might wonder what a man who acts like an embalmer is doing in the Port Alexandria? Isn't it obvious you're here to meet someone?"